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Friday, November 7, 2008
Madagascar sequel doesn’t escape mediocrity
The zoo animals want to flee in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, but I would rather escape this franchise.
The first Madagascar didn’t impress me much. It stood as Exhibit A of why most DreamWorks’ animated features don’t stand the test of time: the movie was less concerned about making the characters likable and more concerned with stitching together a string of pop culture gags, few of which were funny. Even the animation, which is normally a redeeming quality in a DreamWorks effort, was borderline crude.
So I was encouraged when Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa started off looking gorgeous. The movie opens showing how Alex the lion (Ben Stiller) grew up in Africa. The landscapes were beautifully designed, and the character animation had improved.
Even better than that, I was moved by the scenes showing how Alex was separated from his father, captured and sent to the Central Park Zoo. These moments had heart that was missing from the first movie. “Maybe they got it right this time,” I thought to myself.
Then the story switched back to the characters as adults, and the same problems returned: too many references (some of which are already dated) and not enough reason to care.
This time, Alex and his buddies Marty the zebra (Chris Rock), Melman the Giraffe (David Schwimmer) and Gloria the hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith) are, as the title indicates, trying to escape Madagascar, but their plane, flown by the shifty penguins, crashes and they end up on the African mainland. There, Alex is reunited with his parents, who try to welcome him back into their pride, but that strikes the stuck-up Makunga (Alec Baldwin) as an unwelcome idea.
As long as this sequel sticks to this plotline, it’s not half bad, even though it bears more than a passing resemblance to The Lion King. Unfortunately, the movie keeps diverting to other less compelling stories. Marty tries to forge his own identity among hundreds of zebras, all voiced by Rock. This is amusing for awhile, but Marty’s story never gains momentum. Gloria and Melman fare even less well with their scenes, since they generate fewer laughs.
As much as the first Madagascar was lacking, I still slimly recommended it for one reason only: the smart-aleck, crafty penguins. They were hilarious, and I thought at the time I wouldn’t have minded if they had their own movie.
Now I’m not so sure. Not even the penguins are funny in the sequel. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m having a hard time imagining that even adults would find the notion of penguins negotiating union rights all that amusing.
And then there are those annoying references. When the penguins steal a vehicle, they find a tape deck in it playing Boston’s “More than a Feeling.” That’s not funny in and of itself. It’s no more effective than when the makers of Shrek the Third had frogs sing “Live and Let Die” at a funeral for no apparent reason, other than the studio getting the rights to the tune.
I don’t expect every animated film to rise to the level of Pixar, but DreamWorks can do better than this, as they have with Over the Hedge and Kung Fu Panda. The latter comes out Sunday (yes, Sunday) on DVD. That’s the much better choice.
GRADE: C
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